Monday, November 30, 2009

...lord knows we are surrounded by them, but the Sunday Times (UK, of course - the New York Times would rather fold than report the truth about climate-change) has a good list of the top celebrity offenders, and what makes their two-faced hypocrisy so glaring:Tom Cruise — who has campaigned for the LA-based environmental group Earth Communications Office — also has an air fleet and a licence to pilot his five planes, including a top-of-the-line customised Gulfstream jet he bought for his wife, Katie Holmes.

Harrison Ford, who is vice-chairman on the board of Conservation International, voices public-service messages for an environmental federation called EarthShare, and once shaved his chest hair to illustrate the effects of deforestation, is another hobby pilot. He once owned a Gulfstream but now makes do with a smaller Cessna Citation Sovereign eight-seater jet, four propeller planes and a helicopter. U2’s latest world tour features three stages and a giant claw that ensures as many spectators as possible get a decent view. Alas, transporting the whole shebang around the world is estimated by carbonfootprint.com to produce the carbon equivalent of the annual emissions of 6,500 British homes — or a rocket trip to Mars and back. Perhaps more egregious, because she is a much more in-your-face global-warming campaigner, is Dame Trudie Styler, film financier and wife of Sting. Not only do she and her husband run seven homes and travel between them in private jets and a fleet of cars, but in 2007 an employment tribunal revealed Styler was furious when her pregnant chef refused to travel 100 miles to prepare some soup and salad.[Al Gore's] huge Nashville mansion consumed over 20 times the electricity of an average American home. Indeed, according to the Tennessee Center for Policy Research, it burnt twice as much power in the month of August 2006 than most American homes do in an entire year. Another inconvenient truth revealed that the former senator spent $500 a month just to heat the indoor swimming pool in his lavish domestic establishment. The 100ft houseboat he bought in 2008, on the other hand, was said to be powered by biodiesel.Gore gave the usual response of the green celebrity caught not practising what they preach. He said he made up for his consumption of electricity and production of carbon dioxide by buying carbon offsets — some from his own offset company.SUVs and four-wheel-drive cars are another eco-sin green celebs find hard to resist. Those who have harangued the public against driving these wicked vehicles — but who turn out to have recently owned at least one themselves — include Barbra Streisand, Gwyneth Paltrow and Cameron Diaz...there's more at the link. But it really seems to me as if these guys are asking us - sometimes begging us, sometimes demanding of us -to give up on all the fruits of 2oth century technology so they alone can continue to use them. Because they are celebrities, after all, and so much more important to society than we are.Kind of like health care - rationing is necessary so that all might get covered, but the political elite will continue to get top-notch, no-waiting care because...they are the political elite, after all, and are so much more important to society than we are.Notice how much shriller celebrities - both political and entertainment - have become about "saving the planet"? Maybe it's because no one is listening any more; maybe it is because they are worried what might happen if we wake up to the scam that is being put over on us...UPDATE: And while not a celebrity as we speak of the folks above, this guy may be the worst hypocrite of them all - thanks to Mark Steyn for exposing this sack of sh*t:Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, the chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, explains:

Hotel guests should have their electricity monitored; hefty aviation taxes should be introduced to deter people from flying; and iced water in restaurants should be curtailed, the world’s leading climate scientist has told the Observer.

Rajendra Pachauri? Hey, if you're manning the VIP lounge at Heathrow, that name may ring a bell:

Dr Rajendra Pachauri flew at least 443,243 miles on IPCC business in this 19 month period. This business included honorary degree ceremonies, a book launch and a Brookings Institute dinner, the latter involving a flight of 3500 miles.

And in any case it's okay to devastate the planet on IPCC business — plus the occasional cricket match:

So strong is his love for cricket that his colleagues recall the time the Nobel winner took a break during a seminar in New York and flew in to Delhi over the weekend to attend a practice session for a match before flying back. Again, he flew in for a day, just to play that match.Un-freakin'-believable....

Interesting that Barack Obama has decided to give a speech laying out his strategy for victory in Afghanistan (no, he never said that, I did - God forbid the Obamanauts ever conceive of an American "victory" over another nation) in the cozy confines of West Point.Cozy? Yes, because as commander-in-chief, he will have a captive audience. There will be no Joe Wilson calling him out as a liar; no quiet heckling or even uncomfortable murmurs. He is in fact the commanding officer of all of the attendees that will be present; they would no sooner heckle the president than a General, and regardless of his message, the military audience is virtually obliged to support him.Former National Security advisor Richard Allen:President Obama's choice of West Point as the venue for announcing his long-awaited and much- delayed decision about additional troops to Afghanistan appears contrived; it is surely designed to provide an "authentic" and apparently supportive backdrop for a consequential national security decision. It is a fine venue, but it is the wrong one. And the decision to use it is telling about Mr. Obama himself.An announcement on which so much rests must be made from the President's own unique and highly symbolic center of authority, The Oval Office. It has meaning. It should be made by him alone, without the props of thousands in an audience and the hoopla of presidential travel and a massive press entourage. This President surely does not need the device of an audience to authenticate and legitimize his message or to bolster apparent support. But it would appear that he will seek solace, if not a measure of safety, in a large audience over which he has command.The responsibility to make the decision is his alone, and he needs to look the nation squarely in the eye when he makes and justifies it.Well, Obama knows a good photo-op when he sees one. He's hoping that whatever half-baked strategy he rolls out, three months on the late side, will be seen as having widespread military support due to the cheering crowd of soldiers under his command, and the military men who will doubtless be asked to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with him.It's another cheap Obama trick (remember the doctor's "rally" for health care at the White House,?) that the public has seen repeated ad nauseum since the opening days of this administration. The people will judge Obama's plan for Afghanistan based upon its merits and not upon the contrived pomp whipped up by an insecure and vain president.Has Obama realized we has reached this point yet? We'll see, over the upcoming weeks, if he is smart enough to adapt, or if he will drown gazing at his own beatific expression reflecting back at him from the water...

Sunday, November 29, 2009

I'm sure it's only because it was so accurate and clear-cut, that the climate-change crew at the U of East Anglia threw out all of their base data...after all, who needs to re-check "settled science"?

SCIENTISTS at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have admitted throwing away much of the raw temperature data on which their predictions of global warming are based.

It means that other academics are not able to check basic calculations said to show a long-term rise in temperature over the past 150 years.

The UEA’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) was forced to reveal the loss following requests for the data under Freedom of Information legislation.

....Roger Pielke, professor of environmental studies at Colorado University, discovered data had been lost when he asked for original records. “The CRU is basically saying, ‘Trust us’. So much for settling questions and resolving debates with science,” he said.

But it's not about science, it's about the Left's entire world crashing down around them...The Anchoress:

Let me tell you why the press is blacking out the Climategate story....In a nutshell, Climategate is a destroyer of world-views...

The left went that far. The press went that far. T hey embraced this unsettled science, this unproven theory, with a fervor of moral righteousness; to dispute AGW was to be a bad and stupid person, even if were a dissenting scientist.

If the true-believers of AGW got this wrong, and they’d attached it to all of their politics, all of their hate, all of their superiority, then everything is in a free-fall.

And this is why the mainstream media cannot possibly report on Climategate until they have an acceptable counter-narrative that they can haul out in order to either debunk the story or soften its edges, even as they break the news...

Funny to see our self-appointed intellectual elite staring blankly into a world where the key tenet of their faith (in themselves, and their own superiority to the common man) has been upended.

What happens to a member of a cult when the leader is frog-marched off to the hoosegow, admitting it was all a scam to sleep with a variety of gullible women? Can the cultist overcome the extreme emotional investment they have made in a fraudulent movement, or do they take the easy way, and continue to keep the faith? It will be interesting to see how the liberal intelligentsia will respond; so far it seems as if Barack Obama, for starters, is in need of some serious deprogramming, as well as the rest of the Democratic party. The media, too, is stuck on stupid, or perhaps knows all to well what it risks by admitting their whole line of thought, as well as their vicious attacks on "deniers", were completely baseless.But another thing can happen when a group's entire basis of being is yanked out from under them: They can, in their new moral void, turn violent, and compensate with an even more authoritarian outlook. "You won't mock my beliefs now that I hold life and death power over you..."So let's have some fun, but let's make sure the truth comes out, and the haters are exposed. But let's be vigilant as well....

...the likes of Scott Fenstermaker, the defense attorney who is currently representing two of the Guantanamo Bay detainees in their upcoming NYC trials. In an email to the authors of Hot Air:

By the way, please tell your subscribers that I still don’t know who attacked the World Trade Center and, yes, I still don’t care. From the perspective of those who died, it makes very little difference who killed them. From the perspective of everyone else, its frankly none of their business, unless they sit on the jury of course. Print that loud, wide, and clear. Remember that, my fellow American. If the events of 9/11 broke your heart, boiled your blood, or forever changed your life through the loss of a loved one - a husband, wife, father, daughter, son - it doesn't matter. These trials are none of your goddamn business. And the lawyers that Barack Obama has now gotten involved? They don't care. And they want you to understand that loud, wide, and clear.By his actions, Barack Obama has shown that he doesn't care, either. Your suffering? It makes very little difference as far as the application of liberal dogma is concerned. After all, it doesn't matter who killed your loved one, all that matters is that they are "tried" in a setting befitting aforementioned left-wing dogma.Obama, to the victims of 9/11: How I choose to prosecute the perpetrators is none of your goddamn business. Your loved ones are dead already, does it matter to them how I chose to hold the aggressors to account? And frankly, I don't want to hear from you, unless you are members of the jury...For all of his mistakes - and Lord, there has been many - this may be the one that drives the stake through the heart of Obama presidency. Picture a show trial unraveling against the backdrop of the rubble of the World Trade Center - complete w/terrorists dancing on the graves of the innocent, damning America and those wicked Jews - as the voters trudge to the polls next November.What a sick, sad, sorry spectacle the president and his men have visited upon us...

I bring you this slobbering article from the New York Times, dated November 9, 2006, on Barack Obama's "autobiography" The Audacity of Hope":

... its rapid rise to the No. 1 spot on the New York Times nonfiction list next Sunday, placing the author, the freshman Democratic senator from Illinois, ahead of heavyweight authors like John Grisham, Bill O’Reilly and even Bob Woodward, is something of a publishing stunner.

Since it went on sale Oct. 17, the book has sold 182,000 copies, according to Nielsen BookScan...Mr. Obama’s publisher, Crown Publishers, said the book is in its seventh printing, with 860,000 copies in circulation.

“Obama is out of the ballpark completely,” said Mark LaFramboise, a book buyer at Politics and Prose in Washington, a prominent independent bookstore that caters to a politics-hungry clientele...

Glowing reviews for “The Audacity of Hope” have certainly helped drive sales. Writing in The New York Times, Michiko Kakutani called Mr. Obama, 45, “that rare politician who can actually write.” In The Washington Post, Michael Kazin praised Mr. Obama’s “knack for mixing stirring rhetoric about good and evil with practical policy ideas.”

So let's see...Barack Obama Superstar sold 182,000 copies of his "memoir" in the 3 1/2 weeks from its 2006 release to the date the above article was printed. With the help of glowing reviews from the liberal rubber-stamps, no less.

In its first week of publication, Going Rogue: An American Life by former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin was the highest-selling book of the week in the U.S. according to Nielsen Bookscan, debuting ahead of titles by best-sellers James Patterson and Stephen King whose books also debut that week.

HarperCollins has confirmed reports that the book sold 700,000 copies in its first week on sale...HC has 2.5 million copies of Rogue in print after nine trips to press.

Based on the above information, it seems as if Palin's book has outsold Obama's "Audacity" by anywhere from a 9-1 to a 11-1 margin in its first week; this without the glowing press from the NYT or the WaPo. Jeez, no wonder the elite hate her so...imagine the nerve of this woman succeeding without the official approval of the liberal intelligentsia! At least that Obama fella knew his place...

NEA director Rocco Landesman has recently, famously said that"Barack Obama is the most powerful writer since Julius Caesar." A comment based more on pure ass-kissery than the facts, one might rightly assume. But what would Rocco say about Palin's position on the literary stage? What would he say about a book that has outsold everything printed on pulp the last two weeks, one that has thousands lining up in the freezing cold to meet the author, and that has driven the news and entertainment media to distraction?Rocco can't answer you right now. Like most liberals these days, he's hiding under the covers, clutching tightly to his copy of "Audacity", with his eyes tightly shut and his fingers in his ears...

Saturday, November 28, 2009

An interesting piece of news, somewhat lost in the holiday Friday news fog...apparently, the United States is discontinuing coins made of "precious metals":

The U.S. Mint has suspended sales of most American Eagle coins made from precious metals including gold and silver, citing depleted inventories of the metals after sales surged 88 percent in the first 10 months of this year... Sales of American Eagle gold coins jumped to 1.07 million ounces this year through October, from 568,000 a year earlier, according to the mint's Web site. This month, the mint indicated it sold an additional 124,000 ounces of the coins.

About 23.41 million ounces of silver coins were sold this year through October, and almost 2.59 million more were sold this month, the Web site shows... Last year, the mint sold about 15.38 million ounces of silver American Eagles through October.

Produced from gold mined in the United States, American Eagles are imprinted with their gold content and legal tender "face" value. An American Eagle's value is based on the market price of its metal content, plus a small premium to cover coinage and distribution.

What truly sets American Eagles apart is that they are the only bullion coins whose weight, content and purity are guaranteed by the United States Government. Investors can buy them with confidence, knowing the coins contain their stated amount of gold. In addition, long-term savers can include American Eagles in their Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs).

But the sales have been suspended...due to depleted inventories of the metals needed to produce the coins in the first place. Makes sense, like any other business, you must slow production if you are running low on your source material.Still, there are a number of questions that are raised by this action by the Mint:-are we really running low on gold and silver? Maybe I was a sucker for urban legends, but I thought "all the gold in Fort Knox", the government's gold, was an insanely large stockpile, meant to provide the nation with a basis in currency even in case of a global apocalypse. Was I mistaken? Or....- is the government hoarding gold? Maybe even the liberal simpletons in the White House realize that the 24-hour printing-press method of economic management has a finite lifespan, and when it collapses - and the dollar becomes worthless - we will need alternate currency, stat. And what is more valuable today than gold? And how much more powerful will the government be if, when the dollar's collapse is realized, they control the majority of currency (gold) in the market place? Leading me to wonder...- is the government conspiring to keep gold out of the public's hands by halting the sales of these American Eagle coins? Such a strategy both protects the remaining supply of "Obama's gold", and limits the financial (and political) strength of the civilian investor to whom gold may be their only personal bulwark against a potential US financial catastrophe..Well, we do know that if the U.S. Mint, under the Bush administration, had limited the supply of gold to willing buyers, the media would be howling....But either way, something seems fishy here. Has the Mint suddenly run low on gold? If so, how could this be allowed to happen? And if the level of gold held by the federal government is still as vast as rumored, why have they cut off sales to the public?The fact that Obama has not yet figured out a way to blame this particular mess on Bush makes me all the more suspicious...

I don't believe that Democrats in Congress actually disagree with the majority of voters who expect a government takeover of medicine to result in worse health care at a higher cost. Rather, the Democrats believe that degraded health care is an acceptable price to pay for what they are really after--government domination over the life of every citizen. Whether the American people understand how profound is the Democrats' assault on their liberties, and will be willing to do what it takes to throw the greedy rascals out of power, remains to be seen.And we can easily apply the title theme to the climate change scam as well; especially as the ones who stand to reap the most benefitfrom emissions trade-offs are the same ones ignoring the purloined emails, sticking their fingers in their ears, and shrieking "The science is settled! The science is settled!"

The most important take home lesson is that global frauding was the clear and conscious work of a political machine aiming to steal your money, your liberties, and your country. It was a massive, worldwide attempt at a coup d’etat, and the victims were going to include all the free and prosperous peoples of the world. Hitler had his Reichstag fire. Today’s transnational left had its global warming fraud. The political goal was exactly the same: maximum power through maximum fear.

For, make no mistake: The whole point of the exercise is to transfer a trillion bucks from the economies of the world's developed nations to Third World kleptocrats -- with God-only-knows how much cash sticking to the fingers of well-connected UN bureaucrats.

And thus the intersection I made note of earlier...two things that seem unrelated - climate legislation and health care legislation - both serve the same bottom-line purpose: To give more and more control of citizen's private lives, and their incomes, to the government, who will then have the legal power to confiscate both.

And here's the media, unwittingly making my point, as they desperately tie these two liberal horrors together to allow each to make a case for the other...after a storyclaiming that citizen sacrifice in the name of climate change would result in only "a gradual evolution,", and then admitting that "The idea is to gently direct us in another direction so it isn't a big dramatic shift", we get to the intersection of doom:

"Relying on fossil fuels leads to unhealthy lifestyles, increasing our chances for getting sick and in some cases takes years from our lives," U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said. "As greenhouse gas emissions go down, so do deaths from cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. This is not a small effect."

Ah..so if the government is providing health care, then the government must then reduce your carbon footprint, because it could, in theory, save the government some cash! So remember, when you lose your right to drive an SUV, when you are forced to sit in the dark for hours due to rolling blackouts, when gas shoots up past $5- an hour, when you can't afford to heat your home...it's all in the name of "universal" health coverage!Liberal fascism, indeed....

Thursday, November 26, 2009

And you actually believed all that stuff the Democrats said about "inclusiveness", and "diversity", and "dissent being the highest form of patriotism". Sucker.

You see, all the above applies as pertains to your surface appearance - skin color, gender, size, potential disability, sexual preference...and none of it applies as to the way you think. Under Democratic rule, there is only one way to think - their way - so follow along, or get the f*ck out of their country.

"We have tried terrorists in our courts and done so very successfully in the past and that is our system. So if people don’t believe in our system, maybe they ought to go somewhere else. I believe in America.”

And apparently, anyone who disagrees with him does not. A man who simply, truly does not get it - "it" being what it means to be an American citizen, and the rights and privileges that follow therein:

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Well, yeah, he's dead, but his gentle wit and wisdom can still instruct us from beyond the grave....In reference to the so-called "consensus" of scientists that the media (and the Democrats) used to push global warming as a "fact", when recently uncovered evidence has proven that the whole damn thing was a mere hoax, we bring you Dr. Einstein:In the Nazi period, 100 “Aryan” scientists signed a statement against Einstein — saying that the theory of relativity was a Jewish hoax or whatever.Asked to comment on this, Einstein said, “If what they are saying were true, one signature would have been enough.”The lesson:

In science, as in other areas of life, beware the bandwagon.Wish the good doctor had warned us before we put Mr. HopeandChange into the Oval Office...

One of the great freedoms of the United States used to be the freedom to be left alone, to do and think and say what you pleased, as long as no others were harmed in the process. Alas, the running theme of America in the 21st century seems to be, is there any aspect of a citizen's life that the government doesn't feel it has the right to intrude in?

In the event of an emergency, the state of New York may seize control of your Xbox.

Video games will pause and warnings about imminent danger, severe weather or Amber alerts will appear on the screen, under a new notification system for Xbox, Wii and PlayStation set to go live next year.

"Not all people receive information just through radio and TV, so the idea is to reach them through other avenues," said Dennis Michalski, a spokesman for the state Emergency Management.

The video-game alerts will also be voluntary, Michalski said.

But officials are working with technology companies to devise a non-voluntary version of the alerts, which could push messages to every cellphone and video-game system in the event of a life-threatening situation, Michalski said.

Well, that didn't take long to go from "voluntary" to "non-voluntary", did it? A dozen words later, what is being pitched as the helping hand of government becomes the government forcing you to stop your activities and pay attention to them, and to whatever they feel you need to be told.

Not too Orwellian, not too authoritarian...and of course, this latest hack at our freedom to just be left alone is all in the name of "our own good". The government, again, knowing best what that is for each and every individual citizen...

Angelina’s political views have apparently caused friction between the Salt star and her partner Brad Pitt, with whom she raises six children.“They get in nasty arguments all the time about it,” says the source. “She doesn’t respect Brad when it comes to politics, but, in the end, this won’t tear them apart.”

I can't believe this is really happening - welcome to Barack Obama's America:

Navy SEALs have secretly captured one of the most wanted terrorists in Iraq — the alleged mastermind of the murder and mutilation of four Blackwater USA security guards in Fallujah in 2004. And three of the SEALs who captured him are now facing criminal charges, sources told FoxNews.com.

The three, all members of the Navy's elite commando unit, have refused non-judicial punishment — called an admiral's mast — and have requested a trial by court-martial.Ahmed Hashim Abed, whom the military code-named "Objective Amber," told investigators he was punched by his captors — and he had the bloody lip to prove it.

Now, instead of being lauded for bringing to justice a high-value target, three of the SEAL commandos, all enlisted, face assault charges and have retained lawyers.

Remember this?

The Fallujah atrocity came to symbolize the brutality of the enemy in Iraq and the degree to which a homegrown insurgency was extending its grip over Iraq.

The four Blackwater agents were transporting supplies for a catering company when they were ambushed and killed by gunfire and grenades. Insurgents burned the bodies and dragged them through the city. They hanged two of the bodies on a bridge over the Euphrates River for the world press to photograph.

Intelligence sources identified Abed as the ringleader, but he had evaded capture until September.

Abed will likely get a cot and three hots in a stateside prison, and an opportunity to harangue the United States in a civilian courtroom as well.

And it is our brave SEALS who will now have to face the music in front of a military tribunal, all for an alleged fat lip.

How many kicks to the crotch will it take for the Jews to realize that goose-stepping along with the Democratic party is bad for their health? Compared to giving a Medal of Freedom to Mary Robinson, and to (almost) selecting anti-Semite Charles Freemanto chair the National Intelligence Council, and to his cancellation of an appearance before the General Assembly of North American Jewish Federations, and to his non-stop attempts to humiliate Prime Minister Netanyahu, this is not a felony, just another intended slight among many:Officials in the Obama administration have decided that they will be cutting the guest list in half for this year’s Hanukkah party at the White House.......while the size of the party may not be a big deal in the grand scheme of things, even some of Obama’s supporters may see it in the context of this longer train of politically tone-deaf decisions.It's not as if Obama is trying to save some money (ha!); he's going all out on his first state dinner, and filling the guest list with those most crucial of all Americans: Hollywood-types!...this first dinner is primarily a thank you to the Obamas' most important political supporters. ...among the Hollywood contingent asked to attend, are onetime DreamWorks partners David Geffen, Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg; Sony Pictures Entertainment chairman Michael Lynton; and WME Entertainment Agency co-CEO Ari Emanuel. And of course, remember Obama threw the first-ever Ramadan feast in the White House, where he showered the Muslim world with unfettered praise. Guess he had to get the money from somewhere....how ironic if it were taken from the "Hanukkah Fund"!Ironic, but not surprising, given Barack Obama's overt hostility towards Israel and American Jews. It'll take more than a cancelled Hanukkah party (or any of the other slights listed above) to sway the Jewish vote; my people are not unlike an abused wife, who takes the beatings in stride because she is so convinced that her vicious partner - deep down inside - loves her, and is doing it all for a good reason...

So we have the most recent issue of GQ, the one that proclaims Barack Obama not to be simply "The Man of the Year" - no, that does quite encompass his greatness, now does it? He needs to be named...

...yes, "leader of the year", whatever the hell that means. Not sure what the editors were thinking here; were they overcome with their manlove for The One, or did they quite understandably believe they were now living in a third-world banana republic, where survival is based upon one's ability to fawn over the commandant...

Me? I'd find this embarrassing, but then again, I would be embarrassed if the Nobel Committee awarded me the equivalent of a lifetime achievement award after only six months on the job.

Well, that Nobel didn't bother Obama one bit - word is he can't wait to get it on his trophy shelf - and it should be no surprise that this GQ cover didn't bother him either. Behold Narcissus:

Yup, that's The One all right, hopping into a 10 MPG vehicle, clutching tightly onto the new issue of GQ, with his visage staring right back at him.

An echo chamber? Obama prefers a room of mirrors, where all around him is his own sainted image, certified as such by his hand-fed media. How can he be wrong, when everyone says he is so right?

No wonder the guy hates FOX News. They're a crack in the mirror, one that distorts his image in a way that is unrecognizable to his conscious. But rather than examine the image, he chooses to polish the mirrors, and shut out those who would reflect him in a less-than-perfect light.

Is it any surprise he is uninterested in the rising domestic opposition to his policies? After all, how can he be wrong? Jesus, just look at the cover of GQ! He's the leader of the year! Bow, and get out of thy way!

Monday, November 23, 2009

...or maybe its just the entitlement mentality of a union hack, but this is classic...I mean, really - how dare the state of New Jersey sanction a teacher for using a phony diploma in order to obtain raises she didn't deserve?Why, I'll sue! Sue you all!!!!!From an annoyed editorial board at the Asbury Park-Press:Teacher consultant Lorraine Taddei-Graef has appealed the district school board's decision to reduce her salary and ban her from using or making reference to her doctorate degree from Breyer State University, an unaccredited online school that has been labeled a diploma mill.Taddei-Graef is going to court, claiming that any punishment she got for procuring a phony Ph.D. and using it to secure more money was "arbitrary, capricious and unreasonable."

Is she kidding? The state Commission of Higher Education ruled that four district employees with Breyer State degrees could not use their doctoral titles. Why? Because the degrees were bogus. And if they were bogus, they shouldn't be entitled to the $2,500 salary bump accorded those with legitimate doctorates.

Taddei-Graef's legal appeal not only will cost taxpayers more money, but set another terrible example for students, who should be taught that you earn your grades through hard work and discipline — not short cuts and arrogance.But what is the point of being in a union, if not to learn the short-cuts and developed a finely-honed sense of entitlement as well as a king-sized shoulder-chip via unabridged arrogance?Columnist Bob Inglecomes down on the New Jersey schools as well - same paper, same day. Ouch:Waste comes from bloated bureaucracy. With all the money dumped into the 31 school districts that used to be designated as Abbott, there is precious little to show for it because so little gets to the classroom. It is drained off by needless administrators who have assistants who have assistants and they all have secretaries.

One gets the impression schools in New Jersey aren't about educating kids but a public works project like something out of Roosevelt's Great Depression era, except these people are making six-figure salaries and will get fat pensions with health care for life for them and their families...And that's the problem with unions in America. It's not about working hard, or even doing what is required or requested - it is about getting as much as one can for the union and oneself while exerting as little effort as possible, perhaps the antithesis of the American ideal. And if your employer's business should fail, or your students should fail - big freakin' deal! Who's gonna fight the union and hold you to account? And, if by some strange set of circumstances you are called out, there is still always that opportunity to cash in via a frivolous lawsuit!Teacher's unions are often the easiest target for criticism, as they are responsible for educating the nation's children, as well as for preventing the spread of non-union (charter) schools. So when we see them turning the state school system into a giant milking cow for their own use, with our kids suffering for their greed, well - it gets folks pretty worked up, especially in a place like New Jersey, where the school system is used as an excuse for insanely high property tax levies.One would hope that the state's teachers would be smart enough to realize this and tread carefully and wisely. But based on the story of Lorraine Taddei-Graef, and Ingle's point above, it seems as if it's an every-man-for-himself cash grab, and if a few students get trampled on the way to the line for false PHDs, well...let's just say as long as the money keeps coming in, there's little concern for the state of these pupils.Only with strict reform can losers like Lorraine be kicked out, and dollars are better allocated so as to give New Jersey's students a fighting chance. Unfortunately, these stories only indicate one thing: When the teachers win, the students lose...

Poor Jets rookie quarterback Mark Sanchez...his drafting and signing, and especially his 3-0 start, had his fans in the media prematurely calling him the next Broadway Joe Namath. Alas, the shine has come off, as Sanchez has struggled since, throwing pick after pick after pick, looking more and more like a deer in the headlights, his growing pains becoming agony for the now 4-6 team and its fans, leaving many wondering if this young fellow should have sat on the sideline for a while, learning the game at the "big league level" while a mature veteran led the team...

Poor rookie president Barack Obama - his election and inauguration led to a wave of Hope across the land that things have Changed for the better, as his fans in the media prematurely likened him to a modern-day Abraham Lincoln. Alas, the shine as come off, and Obama has struggled ever since his early strong start on the stimulus package. Making mistake after mistake after mistake, in the economic, international, and domestic arena, his growing pains have become agony for the nation and its citizens, leaving many wondering if he should have been allowed to spend more time in the Senate while a more mature leader took over to lead the nation in a time of crisis.

The media has turned on them like spurned lovers as well; Sanchez is being described (in a roundabout way) as pitiful; while Der Spiegel, the influential German weekly, uses the following phrases as sub-headers in it's story about Obama's recent trip to Asia:

Lost Some Stature

Relatively Unsuccessful

'A Lot Like Jimmy Carter'

And talk about looking like a deer in the headlights..as a "tired" and"forlorn" Obama skipped out on a press conference, his coach - I mean, senior advisor - left the media with the following:

David Axelrod, senior advisor to the president, fielded the journalists' questions in the hallway of the Blue House instead, telling them that the public's expectations had been "too high."

Well folks, that's OK for Mark Sanchez, who never strutted into town claiming to be the reincarnation of the long-haired #12. It is not OK for Barack Obama, who did in fact strut all over the nation, making promises he was quite obviously either unwilling or unprepared to keep.

You can always sit a QB down for a game or two, let him learn, relax, and become Ready. We have no luxury in that regard for the president of the United States. Obama may already be a draft-day bust, but as a nation we have to figure out a way to make him productive for us, or at the very least, stop him from being the guy that snatches defeat from the claws of victory; the guy that winds up costing us every game.

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Via sisu: Pope Benedict met artists from around the world in the Sistine Chapel on Saturday and urged them to inject spirituality into their work, saying contemporary beauty was often 'illusory and deceitful," reports Reuters. Compare Papa Ratzi's open invitation to engage in an expansive search for truth with President Obama's secretive, craven attempts to use the art community as a tool of the state to propagandize his own not-so-hidden statist agenda.

Apt analogy. But one notices that the Democrats (now that they have finally obtained absolute power) have not only dropped all pretensions of piety (what church do the Obamas go to, anyway?), but they are launching full-scale broadsides against the Catholic Church and its bishops as they wrangle over taxpayer-funded abortions in the Senate health care bill.

And how ironic that a Kennedy would be on the front lines, fighting against everything that is good and decent in this world. Baby Patrick started the battle, but it looks like the Church might win the war:

Roman Catholic Bishop Thomas Tobin has banned Rep. Patrick Kennedy from receiving Communion, the central sacrament of the church, in Rhode Island because of the congressman's support for abortion rights, Kennedy said in a newspaper interview published Sunday.

The dispute between the two men began in October when Kennedy in an interview on CNSNews.com criticized the nation's Catholic bishops for threatening to oppose a massive expansion of the nation's health care system unless it included tighter restrictions on federally funded abortion.

She also said that religiously-affiliated groups like the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which had pushed for the Stupak provision, should be shut out of the process.

"Last I heard, we had separation of church and state in this country," she said. "I've got to say that I think the Catholic bishops and all of the other groups shouldn't have input."

Note the contrast to the Sistine Chapel statement. The Pope asks artists to inject spirituality into their work, the Obami ask themselves to take spirituality out of their work. The Church looks to open its arms to all in the search for truth and beauty, while Congress has turned to strict partisanship in order to exert control and limit input and opposition.

It is no surprise that these two institutions find themselves at odds. Truthfully, of course, Congress is completely within its rights to ignore the Church's wishes, and the Church is completely within its rights to deny communion to rabid Congressman.But will the American people take a side in this fight? Has the hubris (and Constitutional disregard) of the Democratic party reached the point where it feels it can control the state and the people's primary religious organization? Are they operating under the belief that they can take down the church and destroy the religious right in one fell swoop, thus increasing the odds of their dreams of a permanent majority?

Well, over-reaching has been their specialty these past eleven months. Will they take on American Catholicism, and pit God's law against their own?

That's the road they seem to be travelling on...let's just hope they don't drag the rest of the nation down into hell with them...

The National Inquirerreports on how the First "Lady" has usurped and exiled the Doyenne of Daytime:

A distraught Oprah Winfrey is telling pals her "thank you" for helping Barack Obama win the presidency has been a knife in the back.

A jealous first lady has frozen the talk queen out of the White House inner circle, say insiders. "Oprah is devastated," revealed a friend.

"She had no idea that Michelle was so jealous about the influence she had on Barack. She hated the way her husband would huddle with Oprah over strategy and jump when she called.

....Michelle has made it clear she is no longer interested in being friends with Oprah and is going to block her from access to the President."

Looks like Michelle has her own version of the Obama "bus" -maybe a minivan with 18-inch deep-tread tires - that she uses to roll over those who have outlived their usefulness...or are cutting into her influence with her husband....

Welcome to the club, Oprah. Hey - we were promised Hope and Change, and all we got was slapstick socialism. Why should you make out any better? Your support for Barack Obama cost you viewers and your aura, and your star has declined with his. You exchanged your invaluable personal currency for what you thought would be a girlfriend in the White House and a president's ear, but instead got hustled, defrauded, and shown the door.And as you wind down your show (the way many a middle-class businessman are winding down their shops under the Rule of the One), and while you might be exiledfrom Chicago - Michelle cannot let a perceived rival, especially a fellow "Queen", continue to rule such an important strategic outpost - you at least have a mansion on the West Coast and $2.7 billion to tide you over from the madness you have brought upon us.

We who have less knew better, but alas, we don't all have talk shows.

And where the hell is this issue of Newsweek, by the way? I've been looking and looking and looking all over...

Answer: Two tests that have for years been touted to save women's lives, but coincidentally have been deemed as somewhat unnecessary now that the government has taken over health care.

My mammogram piece is here; and it asks two rhetorical questions: Why is the government fighting to cut back crucial cancer testing that can save lives, while fighting to pay for abortions, which only ends lives?

The second question, well, I ask that this piece from the New York Timeson why we can oh-so-easily cut back on pap smears with no serious loss of life....

New guidelines for cervical cancer screening say women should delay their first Pap test until age 21, and be screened less often than recommended in the past.

The advice, from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, is meant to decrease unnecessary testing and potentially harmful treatment, particularly in teenagers and young women. The group’s previous guidelines had recommended yearly testing for young women, starting within three years of their first sexual intercourse, but no later than age 21.

Arriving on the heels of hotly disputed guidelines calling for less use of mammography, the new recommendations might seem like part of a larger plan to slash cancer screening for women. But the timing was coincidental, said Dr. Cheryl B. Iglesia....

Sure it was. Politicians on both sides of the aisle are a bit skeptical:

Senator Tom Coburn, a Republican from Oklahoma who is also a physician, said in an interview that he would continue to offer Pap smears to sexually active young women. Democratic proposals to involve the government more deeply in the nation’s health care system, he said, would lead the new mammography, Pap smear and other guidelines to be adopted without regard to patient differences, hurting many people.

“These are going to be set in stone,” Mr. Coburn said.

Senator Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Democrat and longtime advocate for cancer screening, said in an interview: “And this Pap smear guideline is yet another cut back in screening? That is curious.”

So here's my second question: Why do so many women vote Democratic, when they are vocally and actively fighting to cut back on services that help keep them alive? Why do so many women vote Democratic, when the party (and its handmaidens in the media) perform nothing less than psychological rapeon them when they dare to wander off the liberal philosophical plantation?

Ann Althouse gets it, and leads us to more disparaging of women in the medical/political community (again touted in the NYT); now we learn that females in pain are just sissies that can easily - and cheaply - be forced to "man up":

We'll save even more money if we just get these women who are bitching about pain to hold their boyfriend's hand or look at a picture of their kid.

She adds:

And one thing in this emerging rationality is clear: Although women tend to love the notion of government control more than men do, it is women who will be told they'll have to cut back. On treatments. And years. You know we've been taking more than our share.Nothing like protecting the more vulnerable members of society, right? Liberalism is virtue at a discounted price, where saving money is worth the death of two teenage girls out of every million...Nobody has been screwed as badly by the Obama administration than women and Jews. Both of whom voted strongly for this leadership. Well, they got what they voted for. One hopes that both groups are learning their lessons - albeit the hard way - and will be sadder but wiser when they next hit the voting booths...

Liberals are always such tough guys...Obama, for instance, squeezes Honduras and screws Poland and Czechoslovakia, but kowtows to Russia and Iran. MSNBC's Norah O'Donnell, for instance, goes to a Sarah Palin book signing and starts beating up on a teenage girl:

The young lady recounts the entire experience on her blog; it's worth reading. A excerpt:

In one day I met a role model, and met the liberal media and their crafty schemes. I fell prey to liberal bias, but I’d like to think I did an okay job. We always want do-overs, and I can assure you if I had a do-over with Miss O’Donnell you’d see a much more prepared (well rested) and ready to go at it side of this 17 year old. But unlike Norah I didnt have my note cards with me. I was forced to think on the spot and answer a gotcha question. Her goal was clear, make this teenager look like an uneducated Palin supporting buffoon. To liberals, and the 5 people who watch MSNBC she succeeded. To conservatives, she was the only buffoon during that interview.